FIFTH-GRADERS CELEBRATE DARE GRADUATION

SUMMIT COUNTY - More than 30 Summit Cove Elementary fifth-graders
celebrated good decision-making about alcohol, tobacco and other drugs.

On Friday, the students graduated from a 10-week Drug Abuse Resistance
Education (DARE) course designed to help them make good choices throughout
their young lives.

Each fifth-grade class in Summit School District participates in the program.

DARE is a collaborative effort among police, teachers, parents and
community leaders that teaches kids how to recognize and resist the
pressures that influence them to experiment with drugs.

"Deputy Michael Sineni came in every Friday afternoon," said fifth-grade
teacher Deborah Mitchell. "He had a very good rapport with the kids. He
taught them ways to say "no' to peer pressure, which is a huge focus.

"It's not a matter of if it's going to happen. It's a matter of when,"
Mitchell added.

Students who completed the program had additional homework assignments and
readings about various scenarios in which a young person might encounter
drugs or alcohol. As a final project, the students wrote an essay on what
they had learned through the program.

"It's a huge commitment for the students and the teachers," Mitchell said.

According to Mitchell, the program prepares children for choices they're
likely to make in the very near future.

"I would definitely say that those things present themselves in middle
school and high school. Sometimes kids make the wrong choices because they
don't know what the possibilities are; they're so young that they don't
think there's an alternative."